The boss of Irish Nationwide received a €11,500 (£10,300) watch from the bailed-out bank as a parting gift, it has emerged.

Michael Fingleton was given the watch just weeks after the bank revealed catastrophic losses of €243m for 2008.

The bank, which pursued a disastrous lending policy in the Celtic Tiger years, has been given €5.4bn from the state as part of a bailout and was last month closed completely with "legacy" business handed to Anglo-Irish Bank.

Mike Aynsley, who is running the wind-down operation at Anglo, has now written to Fingleton demanding the money, or its cash equivalent back.

Internal records reveal that Irish Nationwide also paid €9,650 to the Revenue in respect of tax that would be payable on a benefit in kind. This brought the total cost of the executive's send-off to €21,150.

"It's disgraceful that he would accept a retirement gift at a time when the bank was guaranteed by the state and it was clear that it, along with all other institutions, was financially distressed," said Aynsley.

According to reports, the watch was bought at Paul Sheerin's jewellers off Grafton Street in April 2009, ahead of Fingleton's departure at the end of that month.

Aynsley, who sent a hand-delivered letter to Fingleton's home, has also renewed the request for the return of a controversial €1m bonus awarded to the former Irish Nationwide boss weeks after the government had to intervene to prop up the building society.

Anglo has revealed for the first time that the building society had withheld €400,000 of the bonus for tax at the time it was paid in November 2008 but he was seeking repayment of the remaining €600,000.

Fingleton agreed to pay back the bonus after accusations that it was inappropriate and unethical to take it when the bank only survived because of the government guarantee issued two months earlier in September 2008.

"We are essentially asking him to step forward and do the right thing, at a difficult time for the taxpayer," Aynsley said.

Investigations following his departure prepared for the Public Accounts Committee found that he was awarded the bonus to stay on with the bank for another year, but that the bank had no succession plan.

Fingleton ran the building society from the 1970s and presided over a disastrous property lending policy during the Celtic Tiger years – it lost €2.4bn in 2009, the last year before it was nationalised.

Anglo took over the legacy issues last month as part of the government programme to reduce Ireland's banking sector to two "pillar banks".

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